I want to build a mythTV based HTPC today while it's raining. I'm going to start with a firewire stream from the cablebox and later get a linux compatible QAM tuner. I don't care about massive storage yet, just basic functions:

1) a UPnP media server with the flac translation layer to feed a PS32) a UPnP client to access my DLINK NAS3) rip all my DVDs to HD, I have some amatuer video I want to stream4) SCSI DAT drive to rip my old masters to HD5) record like a PVR using the firewire inputs.

Is anyone running MythTV or Freevo and have opinions or comments? I'm looking on other forums too, but I think that some of the uses I have in mind are more in line with what you guys might be doing.

I have a couple of frontends too. They're nothing special, just make sure they have nvidia graphics if you want them to push HD.

I have not used the UPnP features extensively, as I'm running myth on the frontends and backends. I've messed with it a little bit. It hasn't been supported all that long. When it first came out it seemed useless. It barely worked with any other clients. It's gotten better now but like I said, I haven't used it much, just messed with using it with Media Player and Windows MCE. That seems to work well now.

I looked at Freevo when I was first building my system, over 4 years ago. At that time MythTV was MUCH better. I haven't looked at Freevo since then but I'd be surprised if it's caught up with Myth, given the amount of development that has gone into Myth. It's now very stable and has lots of great features.

If you'd like any help, just ask. I used to spend a lot of time on the mythtv-users mailing list but I haven't lately. That's a great resource if you have any questions.

I have an old workstation that I'm converting. 2.4GHz Celeron, .5G DDR, FX5200 and some random drives. When I learn what I am doing I'll get some 1TB drives. I bought a capture card that is not supported under linux. Now I found out I should be able to record off firewire from the cable STB so I'm going to try that before buying another card.

Yesterday I installed Mythdora 5.0 and today I started ripping DVDs to the harddrive. Playback is great adn the IMDB info lookup is sweet. Maybe you can answer somethings I haven't figured out yet.

What are "storage groups". Setup wants something specified but then complains that the path I enter is bad for a variety of reasons.

How do you consolidate your media into a common listing? I currently have two drives - a 60GB drive that will be the boot drive and initially the test drive for media storage. I have a 150GB drive for additional storage mounted off root for now but I want to add two other drives as you have. Do you have to mount each external drive independently off the video and music directories or is there some way to specify file system poinits for logical aggregation of media types?

How do you enable support for flac? The CD ripping options seem to only offer ogg as the compression type.

Finally, did you have to do something to enable the UPNnP features? I'm not seeing the Myth UPnP server from my laptop (using WMP11 and on2share) but I can see the Dlink NAS's UPnP server. Also from the Myth font end I don't see the NAS. Do I have to invoke a UPnP client? I assumed it would spawn on startup. I was thinking of using FUPPES for the flac transcoding layer but is there a way that Myth will support that inherently? Seems like it will support video transcoding for streams.

Any help would be appreciated.

edit: one more question - is there someway to disable the login after screen saver? I dont want passwords on my tv. I know I can edit shadow manually but is there a way to do it properly through the myth UI?

I have an old workstation that I'm converting. 2.4GHz Celeron, .5G DDR, FX5200 and some random drives. When I learn what I am doing I'll get some 1TB drives. I bought a capture card that is not supported under linux. Now I found out I should be able to record off firewire from the cable STB so I'm going to try that before buying another card.

Yes, you should be able to capture from a cable STB over firewire. I used to do this. Depending on the type of STB you have, it's usually pretty easy to set up.

What are "storage groups". Setup wants something specified but then complains that the path I enter is bad for a variety of reasons.

Storage groups are where the myth backend stores television recordings. You need to have at least one storage group. If you only have one drive to store recordings right now, you will only have one storage group, the "Default" storage group. Setting this up should just be a matter of selecting Storage Directories... Default... Add New Directory and entering the directory name in mythtvsetup. If you have more than one drive, add the directory where each of these drives is mounted to the default storage group, unless you want to dedicate one of the drives to specific shows or to live TV. There's more info on storage groups at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Storage_Groups

How do you consolidate your media into a common listing? I currently have two drives - a 60GB drive that will be the boot drive and initially the test drive for media storage. I have a 150GB drive for additional storage mounted off root for now but I want to add two other drives as you have. Do you have to mount each external drive independently off the video and music directories or is there some way to specify file system poinits for logical aggregation of media types?

If I understand what you're trying to do, adding both of these drives (directories) to the default storage group should accomplish this.

How do you enable support for flac? The CD ripping options seem to only offer ogg as the compression type.

Set the "Default Rip Quality" to perfect. That's a little confusing because it doesn't offer FLAC as an encoding method but there's a message at the bottom that says "Note that the quality level 'Perfect' will use the FLAC encoder." when you are selecting Rip Qualities.

Finally, did you have to do something to enable the UPNnP features? I'm not seeing the Myth UPnP server from my laptop (using WMP11 and on2share) but I can see the Dlink NAS's UPnP server. Also from the Myth font end I don't see the NAS. Do I have to invoke a UPnP client? I assumed it would spawn on startup. I was thinking of using FUPPES for the flac transcoding layer but is there a way that Myth will support that inherently? Seems like it will support video transcoding for streams.

I didn't have to do anything to enable UPnP, though I've had my backend running since before the UPnP feature was introduced. I can't recall ever seeing a place to enable/disable it. Like I said, I haven't used the UPnP features too much. There's some info on using UPnP with myth at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/UPnP. Sorry I can't help you more here as this seems to be important to you. I just haven't used it as I use the mythfrontend / mythbackend on all of my computers.

edit: one more question - is there someway to disable the login after screen saver? I dont want passwords on my tv. I know I can edit shadow manually but is there a way to do it properly through the myth UI?

The screen saver isn't built into MythTV. It would be part of the rest of the distribution. Disabling it will be different depending on the window manager you're using. If you're running KDE, it's in the KDE Control Center. In Gnome it's under System... Preferences... Look and Feel... Screensaver. I completely disable all screen savers (including dpms which blanks the screen) on my frontends.

I hope that helps.

BTW, there's lots of great info on running MythTV on Fedora Core at http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php I've never used MythDora and have always just installed Myth on top of a Fedora installation using ATrpms. If you're familiar with Fedora/RedHat you might like this method. I hear good things about MythDora though.

What confused me about the screen saver is that the Mythdora install included a screen saver option during custom setup so that threw me. I just went to user preferences and turned off the screen lock and it's all good now.

This is really nice. I have never made an effort to build a media server. I'm doing it now because I need to set up a sort of interoperability lab at my house and thats the motivation for having UPnP running. Our company is building a device for which we have DLNA1.5 server compliance and the client side is coming next. So I'm setting up all kinds of little media networks to test streaming here and at the office.

Again, thanks very much. I'll be reading that wiki a lot but it's nice to have someone help jumpstart everything. I'm looking at a directory full of flacs with song titles, so I'm pretty happy with this right now.